In the Cards
by Jack Of Some Trades
Summary: Sequel to What If? Ron decides to seek guidance from the Tarot and...


**__**

Disclaimer: I'm really writing this to take up unfilled space in my story. Other writers would fill the story with quality. Plots, jokes, revolutionary new characters to rock the world of fanfiction for the rest of all time… not me though! I'm writing this for the sole purpose of taking up space. And disclaiming. Which isn't a sole purpose, is it? Okay, two purposes. For the two purposes of disclaiming and taking up space. And humour. I'm writing it for the three purposes of humour and disclaiming and taking up space. And to kill time. I'm writing for the four—for purposes such as, but not limited to, killing time, humour, disclaiming and taking up space. And none of this is mine.

Ron watched from across the Gryffindor Common Room as Harry finally arrived at Ginny's table. He looked nervous enough to fall straight on the floor if someone so much as touched him.

Ron looked back down to his Divination assignment and considered actually looking at his tarot cards. _Well, maybe just this once_, he thought. It wasn't as if he was actually going to start _trying_ in that class.

He laid the cards face down in the spread he'd been taught. _Three cards, each representing a different aspect of myself._ Present, near future, and recent past. _I should add two more: hogwash and tripe._ He chuckled silently at his own joke.

His fortune telling was suddenly interrupted by a cry of "Hogsmeade!" from somewhere in the Common Room. _Well, I suppose I'm looking forward to it too_, he thought.

He flipped over the first card: Death. _Is this Harry's deck?_ He flipped over the card to double-check the back. It was green. _Wow, this is Harry's deck. _He picked up Harry's cards and switched them with his own. _Now, the real first card._ The Queen of Coins. According to Ron's tattered textbook, it meant "A woman who wants to manifest on the plane of earthly activity. She is ambitious and desires to see her plans realised."

Ron looked over at Hermione. _Huh. Sounds like her. _Shaking his head, he put his deck away and decided to do it the old-fashioned way. He would make it up.

"Really? That's great!" Ron heard Harry say from across the room. He looked up to see Harry apologising to those around him. He saw Harry stand, and Ginny grab his hand. _Is no one in our family subtle?_

It was then that he noticed the green back of a Tarot card still on the table. "I thought I put Harry's cards away," he muttered. He picked it up and looked at it: The Lovers. "That's appropriate… and somewhat unsettling."

He put the card back with the rest, and got back to work on his assignment. He was scribbling so intently, coming up with such creative excerpts of doom that he didn't notice that he was almost out of ink until he'd written an inch of blankness. "Damn," Ron said to himself. 

He reached into his bag and pulled out a new inkpot. As he put it down on the table, he looked at Hermione. She had her Defence Against the Dark Arts book open in front of her, and she was writing madly, as if she thought the world would end if she didn't have the essay finished a week before it was due. _She's procrastinating,_ Ron thought with a smirk. _She usually finishes them a month in advance._

For some reason, Ron didn't want to finish his Divination. He found Hermione far more interesting. She had a system, he noticed. Write, double-check, write, Quick-Dry Charm, blow hair out of her face… it was almost hypnotic to watch. And when she double-checked, she always bit her lip slightly.

Suddenly, Hermione looked up and turned her head in his direction. Ron quickly looked back to his Divination assignment, scribbling with a mad fervour. He was halfway down the page before he realised he still hadn't opened the inkwell. He stabbed the top of it with a vengeance and got back to writing. Somehow the words "Queen of Coins" kept getting onto his paper and he had to use an Erasing Charm. _Bloody Tarot._

~*~

Hermione had finished next month's Transfiguration essay on Transfiguring bedknobs to broomsticks. She was now working on Professor de Lioncourt's essay on spells and counterspells. _What is _Severon_ the counterspell to again? _Congreum_? _She double-checked in her book, just to be sure. _Yes, _Congreum_._ She wrote it down and dried it. She then blew a bit of hair off her face impatiently, then continued her assignment.

She glanced over at Ron while she worked. He was staring at a Tarot card of some kind. _Honestly, of all the things he could apply himself to, he chose Divination. He should have chosen Arithmancy or Ancient Runes. Even Muggle Studies is more respectable than Divination._

She turned her eyes away from Ron, hesitantly for some reason, and continued her writing. Often, while working, she found that she became engrossed in the work and relatively unreceptive to that around her. She likely would have lost track of time eventually had not a loud voice saying "Really? That's great!" shocked her out of it. 

Hermione looked up again and saw Harry apologising sheepishly. He was sitting next to Ginny. Hermione grinned; it was about time that he saw what was right in front of him. She glanced over at Ron again to see him take a card off his table and study it. Rolling her eyes, she returned to her assignment.

__

The Hades Potion is effectively countered by both the Freesius Potion as well as the… Frigium Charm? She glanced at her book. _Yes, the Frigium Charm. I wonder how Ron's doing on his Divination._ The last thought shocked her, as she had no intentions of thinking that before. _Well, one doesn't exactly intend to think something, now do they?_ she thought. She looked over towards Ron again, and thought she saw his head suddenly turn downward. _Was he looking at me?_

~*~

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Stupid Queen of Coins. Ron felt like burying his head out in Hagrid's pumpkin patch or something that would hide him until he turned thirty or so. Hermione'd seen him staring at her, and it was that card's fault. He threw down his quill and picked the card out of his deck and stared at the picture on it. It was a pretty brown haired witch surrounded by a small fortune. She kept looking between Ron and a book sitting near her, as if telling him to do something. "Bloody thing even acts like Hermione," he muttered.

He looked up again and saw that Hermione had returned to her work. Harry's words from earlier came back to him: _"You mean like you and Hermione?"_

He then got an idea. An awful idea. Actually, it was a wonderful and brilliant idea, but he thought it awful for a moment. _I could ask Hermione to go with me to Hogsmeade,_ he thought. _We'd be going together anyway, this is just changing the reason behind it._

The more Ron thought about it, the more it made sense. There was only one problem Ron could see. _She might say no because of that great bloody Bulgarian idiot, _he thought bitterly. _But is being rejected worse than sitting here stewing over it?_

Ron sighed and looked to the Tarot. He picked up the Queen and asked her, "What do you think?" She winked in response, and he took that to mean yes.

~*~

__

I think he was_ looking at me! But does that mean he saw me looking at him?_

Hermione bit her lip nervously and tried to concentrate on her assignment, but Ron kept entering her mind. _If a stranger with long hair and a French accent tries to seduce you in the middle of the night, you should…If he would hurry up and take a hint, then I wouldn't have this problem._

Hermione threw down her quill, frustrated. Deciding she wouldn't get her Defence Against the Dark Arts assignment done anytime soon, she took out her Ancient Runes book and translated "Ronald Weasley is a complete idiot" into several nearly dead languages.

She filled an entire parchment with this message before she was brought out of her near trance by a voice. "Hermione?" Ron said, almost timidly.

Controlling her emotions, she turned slightly to see her friend. "Yes, Ron?"

~*~

__

I just have to say what I came here to say. She's one of my best friends. "You want to come with me to Hogsmeade?" Not hard. "How's Vicky?" Ron asked. _Wait, that didn't sound right._

Hermione narrowed her eyes and responded very coolly, "_Viktor_ is fine, Ron. Why do you ask?"

__

I won't mention Krum, I won't mention Krum… "Well, I was just expressing concern for my friend's boyfriend. Even if he is too old for you." _Damn it!_

"First, Ron," Hermione said through gritted teeth, "we're just friends."

__

Yes! Ron thought.

"Second, it's none of your business who I choose to associate with," Hermione continued in a slightly higher voice. She was obviously reaching the breaking point.

Obvious to anyone but Ron, that is.

"It bloody well is my business who you associate with!" Ron retorted angrily. "You're my friend!"

"Well you're not acting like a friend right now Ron!" Hermione practically yelled. Then she calmed down slightly, and said, "Look, Ron, I doubt you came over here to yell at me about Viktor."

__

She's right! What do I want to do? "That's not what I wanted at all!" His ears turned a vibrant shade of red as he started to realise exactly what he did want to do.

"Well what did you want?" Hermione cried.

__

I know exactly what I want to do! "This!" With those words, he put his hand behind her head, the other behind her waist, and brought her lips to his.

After a few seconds, reason returned to Ron's brain, along with its good friends embarrassment and bashfulness. He slowly, and slightly reluctantly, broke away from Hermione. _Well, I've either destroyed our friendship or cemented our relationship,_ he thought.

Suddenly, from everywhere in the Common Room, applause came. Looking around, Ron saw that everyone was looking at the pair of them. His own brothers were the leaders of the noise making, yelling, "It's about bloody time!"

~*~

Hermione stood dumbstruck for a few moments after Ron's lips left hers. _He… kissed me?_ As applause thundered through the room, she whispered an unheard "Wow."

"So, Hermione," Ron said finally. Every inch of skin she could see was as red as his hair. "You want to go to Hogsmeade with me?"

Everyone leaned forward slightly. "A little privacy?" she hissed at them. Slowly, they dispersed, and she faced Ron again. "Aren't we going together anyway?"

An unreadable look crossed Ron's face. It looked like a cross between disappointment and confusion. Finally, Hermione grinned, and pecked Ron on the cheek. "I'd love to," she said.

The entire room applauded again, but they barely heard it. They were too wrapped up in each other.

**__**

Not literally, of course. Get your mind out of the gutter. Well, this was a sequel. Was it satisfactory? The cards know all, don't they?


End file.
